Many games seem to have their own theme song, ranging from simply an iconic song from a level that then was turned to be recognized as the song of that game, or actual theme songs of games. What is/are your favorite(s)?

Personally I love Still Alive from Mirror's Edge (yes, gotta point out it's ME's theme, not the Still Alive from Portal). Both the instrumental and the vocals versions just have that feel of feel good when the credits roll after the final level (of course that's the vocals version over the credits, but the instrumental is great as well). Also, I happen to love the trailer music that was in Far Cry 2's Jackal Trailer.

Nether Animal from UT99!

Not technically a theme song, but a very memorable song for me.

Unreal 1 SunSpire music.
or NyLeve Falls.
both are epic...

For me,Unreal 1's Dusk Horizon is THE iconic song from that game,sure the credits music is the actual theme(very epic) and Fight Castle is the menu music,but that is the one song that is so incredibly powerful it actually brings tears to my eyes.

it would definitely be Night vision from Unreal. followed by Isotoxin of the same game.
for Unreal Tournament, it would be Mechanism 8. god i love that song. Rom De Prisco did a good job on the remix but i feel its still rather short. and Forgone destruction is second and the Course is third.
UT2, i say corrugation-Rise. the strange drums in the background in the beginning then followed by a electric guitar then some synth-thing that sounds pretty cool. and rather retro. and also followed by the Go Down remix.
UT3: Defector. i love that song. sounds like some cyberpunk midnight street racing. i extracted the song from the game and combined all the separate audio samples use in the dynamic music thing to make whole 8 minute long song with Audacity.(and other songs too). then Lockdown and To The Death.

other games is Guard Down for the half life 2 series. Peril for the Halo Series. and Hell March for the Whole command and conquer series. DIE WAFFEN, LEGT AN!
and Still Alive from Portal. there are a few others but they escaped my mind at the moment.
now im gonna practice on my Pen Tablet.

Also: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheMusicOfUT

I can think of many memorable songs from various games.

Unreal: Sunspire is my favorite from the game. It is so atmospheric; has a night-time, lonely feel to it. Really sets the mood for both Spire Village and The Sunspire. Though one thing that annoys me about it is the loud humming in the background, it is very distracting (to me at least) when I'm trying to enjoy the music itself.

Unreal - Return to Na Pali: Definitely Nagomy Passage (day), very catchy and stays true to the mood of the level it represents (the level after you exit Velora Temple, iirc).

Unreal Tournament: Nether Animal. I always associate this one with AS-OceanFloor, it has a great underwater-themed sound to it which is perfect for that particular map.


Quake 2: Intro music. Bloody awesome theme going, where we see the Quake 2 logo in the form of an asteroid flying through space with some powerful music and radio chatter in the background. Gives me goosebumps every time.

Hmm...

UT1999- Either Organic Or Foregone Destruction

UT2004- Oceania (AKA Organic for UT2004)

UT3- Foregone Destruction Remix or Lockdown Remix

Psi-Ops: Mindgate Conspiracy- With My Mind By Cold

Super Mario Galaxy: ANY FREAKING SONG. It's Epic!

Ratchet and Clank: UYA: Vs. Mother Tyrrhanoid theme.

Fallout 3: ANY SONG.

Serious Sam The Second Encounter: The Rock version of Jingle bells or the Cathedral Theme

Deus Ex - The whole OST. There was so much diversity and so much awesomeness.

No one does Jingle Bells better than Yello, but yeah, Damjan Mravunac's composition is very addictive.

Seconded without hesitation.

Most of unreal / UT 99 music and deus ex

Alexander Brandon and Michiel van den Bos are great music artists, they are responsible for the music in Unreal, Unreal Tournament and Deus Ex.

Amen to that!

Probably one of the Hell Marches from Red Alert.
Frank Klepacki is a genius.

Oh yeah, more songs that I like from UT99:
Razorback
Mechanism 8
The Course
Firebr
Go Down

If only game music was like that nowadays...

oops, double post.

Most of Unreal 1's songs were excellent and stayed true the the mood of the level, changing when fighting etc, was really done well UT99 followed a similar vein, so it was also excellent

Original Doom 1 & 2's music! I can play a few bits of some of those tracks on guitar and have done remixes for a few Definetly awesome music!

And of course Quake2 and it's expansion packs we're brilliant! Sonic Mayhem i believe. (But if i remember the manual correctly, Rob Zombie did the into or outro, can't remember)

Yup, it was Rob Zombie. There was one or two other artists involved (not counting Sonic Mayhem) but I can't remember the name(s) off the top of my head.

Portal ending song.

lol, Still Alive. The first Still Alive for a theme song. XD

Edit: I forgot about a few other of my absolute favorite theme songs!!

Don't Burn Out! - from Burnout 2: Point of Impact
Burnout Paradise Theme

Okay, Paradise's theme is basically the same as B2:PoI's theme, but it kicks even more ass with those sweet guitar parts!

Just saw this thread XD
Lovely music for mirrors edge...
Here is a selection of ones that I love
Doom 1 lvl 1 -1
Duke Nukem (I think)
Soul Calibur 2 (all of them are good)
Not really a from a game but still good The Legend of Zelda by System of a Down (sorry bout the video, could not find music on its own)
TLoZ: Ocarina of Time Theme Music


Raziel

P.S They (anyone) should make a game like GTA and Mirrors edge mixed...

Honestly I would have to say the Halo series.

Sorry, could not resist!

Halo has good music in it...

Raziel

P.S I'm struggling not to mention the physics (bugger, just did )

mmm.....
the whole perfect dark soundtrack (really amazing!!! ), specially the main theme "Alien conflict"
all the zelda series have good sountracks too...
my favorite theme form the ut99 sountrack is the track in DM-stalwart, im not sure about the name, "strider" maybe?

Yeah, Strider AKA Into the Darkness. The song didn't really fit the level in my opinion but I liked it nonetheless.

Now Mech8 and Ice Station Zeto on the other hand...

Hmm... Tough one... But I'm with UglyPants, Halo is definitely on my list.

I pretty much love the entire sound track of Quake 2 also, and the menu song for Doom 3 is freaking amazing.

Forget about Doom 1 + 2, E1M1 of course being the absolute best.

Yep and they did the best for those games, just hearing the sound tracks are a hear pleasure ^^

The music is okay but the sound quality is horrible.
It sounds more like bad mastering than over-compression though.

It's .ogg compression. Isn't that a bit worse than MP3?

No, it is the other way around. Vorbis is transparent at much lower bitrates than mp3 on average, though the actual ratio of course boils down to what codec is used and the type of music/audio being encoded.

Overall I'd say vorbis aoTuV is the best lossy codec out there. Hell, the aoTuV developer was even asked if he wanted to help develop the official codec due to his excellent work on improving its psychoacoustics model. I believe right now he is working on fixing something known as the block switching issue, I have no idea what that is though.

Anyway, mp3 is an ancient standard, and due to its non-open source nature there isn't much that can be done to improve it. I'd say the only reason it is so popular is because it is mainstream, and mainstream is usually not the best option available; just take monolithic garbage piles like Adobe Reader or Nero Burning ROM for examples.


This ended up being much longer than I had originally planned.